On January 28, 2017 at 01:34 UTC (on January 27, 2017 at 22:03 local time) the Russian "Soyuz-ST-B” rocket-carrier was launched from Kourou launch site (the Guiana Space Centre) in French Guiana. The rocket equipped with the "Fregat-MT” booster orbited the “Hispasat 36W-1” telecommunication satellite. It is a Spanish-owned communications satellite built in Germany to test new commercial telecom technologies and provide video, voice and data relay services.

On January 27, 2017, the Japanese "HTV Kounotori-6” unmanned supply spacecraft departed the International Space Station. First HTV-6 was disengaged with the space station's robotic arm from a docking port on the Harmony module. At 15:46 UTC the spacecraft was released by French astronaut Thomas Pesquet. The HTV’s mission is not over after its departure from the space station. The "HTV Kounotori-6” spacecraft will stay in orbit until February 5, 2017 conducting an experiment that could lay the foundation for a mechanism to remove space junk from orbit.